This paper proposes a real-time power analysis platform, including both hardware
and software modules, which is capable of profiling, analyzing and controlling power
behavior for power-efficient/aware embedded system applications that can be used for
both educational and research purposes. The platform consists of an SoC development
board with power measurement probes and supporting power measurement mechanisms,
application phase tagging, power analysis, and power control. It allows the developer to
profile and analyze the real-time power usage of various major parts of a major hardware
system while running an embedded system application on the development board. Application
phase tagging makes it possible for the developer to associate the power usage
with the application behavior in detail, and the power control mechanism makes it possible
to develop power-aware applications capable of dynamically adjusting power behavior
while sustaining necessary performance. A digital still camera (DSC) was used as
a case study to test this platform. We first characterized the power usage of the DSC and
then improved its power efficiency with power-aware operations.

Keywords:embedded systems, energy-aware, low-power design, power analysis, poweraware,
power control, power management, power measurement, power optimization

Retrieve PDF document (201105_24.pdf)

Received February 15, 2009; revised July 31, 2009 & February 1, 2010; accepted February 26, 2010.
Communicated by Chung-Ta King.
* This paper was partially supported by the National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan R.O.C. under contracts
NSC-96-2815-C-110-037-E and NSC-97-2917-I-110-109.